Singularity of Computing

Computer Technology is not serving our needs, or if it is, it is
vulnerable to
failure at every level. Outlined in this article is a clear
articulation
of the failings of technology. Importantly, this article describes the
solutions
required to mitigate against failure and attack, and how to overcome
some of the
shortcomings that would, if implemented, make computer technology actually
"useful" to the human race.

However, all of these articles miss a fundamental point: what are computers
for? The original definition of a "Computer" was a title - like
"Professor" or "Doctor", and Asimov's book entitled "The End of
Eternity" was
written at the time when the title was still in use. The title was
given
to someone who "performed computation". Before valves, transistors and
silicon chips existed, many "Computers" were given the job, often in
parallel,
of hand-calculating a complex mathematical task, with mental arithmetic,
pencil,
paper and slide rules as their tools. Fast forward to the 21st
Century and
we have "Computers" that can perform billions of calculations per
second, and
communicate millions of words per second (although it definitely doesn't
seem
like either of these things are true!). Yet, all that speed helps
humanity
not one bit if we don't know what "Computers" are actually for!
How can
"Computers" actually help us "humans"?

So, this article will ask - and attempt to answer - the questions listed
below.
It will also outline where things stand at the moment; outline what the
author
believes people really could do with help from technology; what
technology the
author believes will be useful to people; and finally, provide a roadmap
outlining what technologies need to be sythesised together, improved or
developed entirely from scratch to actually and reliably meet people's
needs.

So - here are the questions:

What do people need: how have lives been improved by technology?

How is technology currently used by most people?

What are the limitations of present technology that users
face, perhaps without realising?

Why is our current technology so fragile? Why does it matter?

How is technology currently used in some more obscure areas?

How could the mainstream convergence of this obscure technology help
people?

What do people need: how have lives been improved by
technology?

The best technology helps people articulate and communicate their
thoughts. The best technology allows people to be much more useful
members
of society. The best technology helps people to be happy, have
fun, enjoy
their lives.

Communications. Finding the right people to communicate with,
being
able to contact them in a way that suits all parties.

Articulation. Technology should assist people to be able to
articulate their
thoughts and ideas; it should augment the limitations of the human mind,
enhancing a person's abilities and saving them time.

Here are some simple examples on how technology improves people's
lives:

A local fisherman is approached by a broker who would like to buy his
prawns. The price offered is a minute fraction of the market
value. The fisherman is able to look on the Internet or make a
phone
call to neighbouring villages and towns, to find out what the price of
prawns is elsewhere. The fisherman can work out whether someone's
lives will be made better by being able to eat fresh prawns; the
fisherman's
life can be made better by being able to get a better price for his
goods. Technology is "useful" to the fisherman as it increases his
income.

An inventor has an idea for a new form of energy production, but needs
access to supercomputing to perform some essential calculations.
Following a breakthrough development success, the inventor announces his
success on the Internet and is approached by investors who turn the idea
into reality. Word of the new energy source reaches people through
advertising on radio, television and the Internet. Lives are greatly
improved by a reduction in the cost of transportation and living. The
inventor is more "useful" to people by having access to technology, and
technology is "useful" to the inventor as it helps him realise his
goals and
also brings him some income.

A homeless woman has an idea to make products made out of recycled
materials. By using free Internet web services, she is able to
advertise, sell, and be paid for her products. All her
communications she
could do through accessing free or paid-for Internet services, at
libraries
and cybercafés. This true story turned a homeless woman
into a
"useful" member of society, even though she has no fixed physical
address to
live.

The examples could go on and on, and they illustrate plainly and simply
that it
is technology that augments us as individuals for society's benefit -
ultimately
for everyone's satisfaction and happiness. Technology allows us to
realise and
express our ideas and also to communicate them.

How is technology currently used by the average
person?

With the explosion of the Internet, communication is now much more global,
instantaneous, and increasingly a way of life. Here is how the average
person uses technology:

Obtain information - usually for entertainment, travel etc. - off of
single-point-of-failure servers

Pay for goods and services, using single-point-of-failure servers

Attempt to communicate through an alarmingly increasing noise-to-signal
ratio

Attempt to communicate those "documents" - thoughts - by "copying" them
(emailing them), or attempt to communicate these "documents" -
thoughts - by
using collaborative technology that runs on centrally controlled
servers. There are many examples, but some of the more
high-profile
examples are Google Docs and Wikipedia.

These uses are clear: technology is in fact being used for communications;
technology is in fact allowing people to articulate their
thoughts. Yet,
at the same time, there are limits, which are hinted at above and will be
described in more detail in later sections. It's worth emphasising,
however, that in all of the uses, sharing and collaboration is most
definitely
not high on the agenda, and it's worth emphasising even more that this
is the
average user's fault.

What are the limitations of current technology that users
face?

Technology provided to mainstream users has the following
shortcomings:

Mainstream technology is unreliable and user-hostile. The primary
reason for this is the dominance of corporations who, realising that
there
are very few real options, provide the minimum level of service
required to
get you to buy their product, whilst either deliberately or
unintentionally
not satisfying your actual needs. Their purpose is to drive
you to buy
the "next version of the product". Thus, the corporation's
needs are
served (make a profit) but yours are not. Not really. This
phenomenon is now fully recognised, and articulated well in quite some
detail in the documentary "The Corporation".

Mainstream technology has many single points of failure such as
monoculture
design, and monoculture communications. Monoculture design is where one
dominant software manufacturer has over 90% market share.
Monoculture
communications is where Government-regulated Internet Services are
provided
and controlled by a very small number of corporations.

The list of products that do not satisfy particularly well and/or are
dependent
on single points of failure is pretty large: take any modern appliance
such as a
Personal Computer, a Cell Phone, a Smart Phone or a Media Player, and
you will
immediately encounter limitations and dissatisfaction:

The iPhone is only available in certain countries; has limited
"approved"
service and applications which, if bypassed or not adhered to,
terminates
your service irrevocably. Only specific companies, notably O2
and AT
& T, sell the iPhone.

Cell phones and Smart Phones promise certain features, yet these
features
are singularly unfulfilling, and can only use the communications
infrastructure provided by the corporation that you purchased the phone
from. For example, there is only one manufacturer in the world
that is
promising to sell a phone that by default will be provided as "unlocked"
rather than being tied to specific Airtime Providers: First
International
Computers's sister company "OpenMoko" is developing the "FreeRunner"
product.

DVD and other Media players are "region locked" and DRM imposed (and
then
bypassed).

DRM is particulary worthwhile highlighting. Where it has been
understood
or its restrictions have impacted on user's choice and rights, Digital
Rights Management has been rejected outright by users, but the fall-out
from the
imposition of DRM is still being felt. Producers of Digital Content
decided that they did not trust users not to pay large sums of money for
their
products. Their solution was, instead of reducing the price or
increasing
market penetration by selling product over the Internet for people to
view on
the computer technology of their choice, to ask Governments to enact laws
forcing manufacturers to control the access to their content. The
justification
for this decision was clearly stated that "people cannot be trusted: we
are all
thieves". Unfortunately for the Producers, complete and total
control of
all computer technology could not be established: many Sovereign States
ignored
the Producers' demands; several people found ways to bypass the DRM
mechanisms,
often within hours of them being released; many more people are
satisfied with
low-quality copies of the Content than the Producers realise.

A few Producers have finally begun to understood the reality of the
situation. For example, Disney now sells DVDs in China at the same
cost as
the copies being made. Their successful strategy in this market is
simple:
authenticity. However, this quite prevalent realisation of the Content
Producers that DRM does not work does not stop the DRM technology from being
developed, manufactured and deployed. Microsoft realises without
question
how "useful" DRM is to increasing its control over its already-captive
market. Fortunately, the cost of the hardware which contains DRM
encryption technology is so much higher than that which does not have
DRM that,
purely on market forces alone it is difficult for Microsoft to
succeed.
What they are looking for, however, is the "tipping point" of market share,
where DRM is so prevalent in commodity PC hardware that they can, like
the Apple
iPhone, "disable" the operating system if "non-DRM" hardware is attached
to the
machine, or if "unapproved" software is installed.

Overall, then, the ordinary user's desires are, instead of being satisfied,
being exploited and controlled. Ordinary users, who neither have the
capacity to
understand nor the time or capacity to "develop their own technology",
are being
deceived and let down. (Reports came out a few years ago
in which
people honestly believed that by buying a "new computer" that the
problems they
previously encountered with viruses and spyware would "go away" by virtue of
them paying "more money").

As a side-node: underestimating the average person's requirements and
capabilities is one of the areas that Free Software Developers often fail to
appreciate: the average person does
not have
the capacity to "modify" or "improve" free software: the fact
that the
source code is available is entirely irrelevant to them. Consequently,
they are happy to "pay money" for something that "does the job" - for
the most
part - and if it doesn't entirely satisfy, their only option is to
complain and
suffer. Most
people simply
do not know that Free Software even exists as an alternative option,
and, even
when they hear about it, it is often too cumbersome to install or use -
and if
they can install it, it doesn't even begin to offer the things that they
want. This failing of Free Software - to fail to
deliver to
the majority of people - is beginning to be understood and
recognised,
and has even been recognised in some free software circles for many
years, to
the extent where it is already on "roadmaps" for the future of Free
Software. That doesn't necessarily make it come true,
though....

Why is our current mainstream technology so fragile?
Why does
it matter?

As hinted at, above, our current mainstream technology is, for the most
part,
designed, manufactured and controlled by a limited number of multi-billion
dollar corporations. But there is much more to it than that: most
technology is designed with single points of failure built in! It
is just
much simpler for any team of people - no matter how large or small - to
utilise
the existing well-understood tried-and-tested development tools and
computing
infrastructure than it is to design software or hardware that will be
robust and
resilient to failures, attacks or control. So, whilst
multi-billion-dollar
corporations deliberately design technology that can remain within their
control
in order to guarantee profits, unfortunately that also often implies
that the
technology is susceptible to single-point failures and attack.

A few successful companies and products have bucked this trend: they will be
outlined in more detail later but one that is definitely worth
highlighting is
Skype. Skype is an Internet Communications product that offers the
following amazing features:

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. No hassles. no fuss. you
do not
have to be a genius to install or use it: it just "works".

Free Internet phone calls

Free Internet Messaging

Free Internet Video calls

Conferencing and Voicemail

Access to "Plain Old Telephone Systems", including, in about 2004 only,
access to Satellite phones (for about $4/min!).

Routing from "Plain Old Telephone Systems", where you can pay for as
many
"incoming" telephone numbers that you like, in over 20 countries
including
the United States, Hong Kong, the UK, France, Germany. Calls
to these
numbers will be routed to you over the Internet, so you can be in one
country and receive calls from another!

Hand-held wireless devices which look like a Mobile Phone but
actually are
running Skype over WIFI!

Deals have been done with 3G Cell Providers to run Skype on
Smartphones, as
the cost of making an International call over Skype is far less than it
would be over the 3G Airtime network! When this service was
eventually
offered by Three Networks, their subscriber base increased by
100,000 in a
single month. However, Skype for Mobile PDA Phones as
downloaded from
Skype itself is still blocked by Three Networks: you have to get a
customised version from Three Networks, for which you must pay a monthly
fee...

Skype - a proprietary program that restricts user's
freedom - is a unique blend of peer-to-peer and other technologies
that give the
user what they want: the means to communicate easily and without fuss,
and it is
this "blending" that we need to see more of. The bottom line is
that Skype
is "useful". However, Skype is the successful exception to the
rule. Most
mainstream technology is designed with a single database as its storage
mechanism; a single file on a single computer which isn't backed up
automatically; a single server which gets overloaded or hacked - the
list goes
on.

Why does this matter? Why does it matter that technology should be
reliable, robust, resilient and decentralised? The answers to these
questions should be self-evident, and have been answered many times
before, but
here are a few examples which illustrate this clearly:

Technology is used in Air Traffic control. Deployment of a
virus-susceptible Operating System that is known to have an uptime
of only a
few weeks seems insane, yet it has happened. Unix systems with

proven
reliability measured in years is routinely replaced on
cost-saving-exercises
by Windows.

A United States Aircraft Carrier was deployed with its control systems
running Windows NT 4.0. The technology crashed, leaving a
flagship of
the best that the United States Military has to offer dead in the
water and
having to be towed into harbour.

Call-centres "outsourced" to India were unavailable for a day when the
single fibreoptic connection between India and the United States failed,
inexplicably. It was repaired relatively quickly, but the
damage was
done: the loss to U.S. businesses was so extreme that many companies
immediately terminated their outsourcing contracts and began to
reinvest in
local call centres. If the underlying technology used had been
peer-to-peer internet-based, across the globe instead of just in India,
using small decentralised offices instead of single centrally housed
ones, a
single fibre-optic failure would not have been so disruptive to the
innovative cost-saving practice of "outsourcing". However, the
U.S.
economy improved due to the increase in local U.S. call centres so
perhaps
it is not all bad...

Alternative Energy and so-called "Free" Energy Technology is routinely
tracked down and suppressed, or the rights to the patents are bought
from
the inventors, and shelved. For example, a scientist who has
rediscovered the "Joe Cell" had his house burned down by teenagers, and
Russian scientists who have discovered a way to get hydrolysis to
sustain
itself for several hours after the electricity supply stops were
threatened
at gunpoint (hydrolysis is the process by which water is split into
hydrogen
and oxygen by running electricity through it). If all these
Alternative Energy technologies, as part of the development process
by the
scientists, were uploaded into Freenet or other File-Sharing
technology, it
would be incredibly difficult for the information to be
suppressed.
Unfortunately, many of the scientists expect to make money by patenting
their technology. This usually turns out to be their first
mistake.

Information in the U.S. and the U.K - crucial reports which indicate
failures in performance and delivery of services - is often removed,
despite
laws which require it to be provided. Often, the information
is not
even known about, and so cannot even be requested. In the
U.K., there
is a cost-benefit analysis performed on the cost of providing the
information requested. If the number of people requesting the same
information exceeds a certain threshold, it can be treated as a single
request. If the amount of time to provide the information
exceeds a
certain number of days, a fee can be requested. If the time
spent on
providing the information exceeds yet another threshold, it does not
have to
be provided at all.

Censorship of Internet web sites is a common practice, with "Takedown"
notices. Web sites expressing viewpoints which conflict with
one party
or organisation's goals are attacked. "Freedom of expression" is
routinely undermined, whether the views expressed are valid or
not.
This is a particularly thorny issue, because the "right to express
onesself"
can often result in flawed or illogical ideas overruling perfectly good
ones. For example, traditional practices on which an entire
society
has worked for generations are thrown out because access to another
society
makes some people want to have the benefits of that society, without
realising that those benefits often come with a hefty price tag.
However, there are also sensible people who also should have the
"right to
express themselves", pointing out, just as is done here, the good
reasons
why a society would benefit far more from following its own traditional
values than it would to follow another decadent society's values -
yet if
the issues are "suppressed" entirely, then no opportunity for such a
discussion involving input from sensible cooler heads even exists.
(Decentralised and ecrypted forums that use peer-to-peer technology
would
allow such discussions to take place, but few people realise such
technology
exists, and it has to take place on easily-trackable
centrally-controlled
Internet Services which will spot the encrypted traffic far too
easily).

As mentioned earlier, Skype and other VoIP services are routinely
suppressed. Internet Phone data is identified and either "dropped"
altogether or made so horribly unreliable that it is completely
unuseable. Payment of a fee to the ISP, or the use of the
ISP's own
VoIP service, which is usually much more expensive than Skype,
miraculously
results in absolutely great service - on exactly the same
network.

Many ISP contracts in the United States outright ban the use of Virtual
Private Networks, because the traffic on VPNs cannot be
"analysed". As
there are often no alternative services available, or they are far more
expensive and inaffordable, people are forced to sign these contracts.

Cellphones are typically only available with a particular airtime
provider,
with a highly-controlled Operating System on the actual phone
hardware. WIFI is almost never provided except in smartphones:
even
then, it is extremely difficult to make WIFI phone calls, and only
in the
past year and then only with a high price tag has technology been
created
which performs seamless hand-over of phone calls from WIFI to
GSM. The
cost savings that users would make would be enormous, if they could
transfer
calls from a free WIFI hotspot over to an airtime provider - but
that money
saved would be money not going into the Airtime provider's pockets,
so the
practice is not deployed, mainstream, at all. The issue is a
multi-faceted one with a complex cascade of Catch-22 situations,
involving
quite a lot of threatening and posturing by the main players, to protect
their respective billion-dollar-investments. At its core,
though, is
the issue that there is really only one mobile phone - the OpenMoko
"FreeRunner" - that is sufficiently open for innovative developers
to create
this seamless hand-over system on without being adversely influenced by
those corporations who stand to lose a lot of money, and the
"FreeRunner" is
only into its second hardware revision in the next few months.

The list of examples could go on endlessly, illustrating how people's
individual
needs and desires, and society's, humanity's and the planet's needs are
being
undermined, controlled, supressed - but this article would become too
long (and
this article's purpose, and that of its accompanying article,
"Tech
Fusion Outline" is to describe solutions, not reiterate the
problems).

At the core of the issue is the effects of "The Corporation", and the
documentary of the same name outlines clearly that "Corporations" exhibit
pathological behaviour. A single small corporation on its own, however
pathological, usually has little effect on society and our planet. A
multi-billion-dollar corporation often has enormous detrimental impact
on the
environment and our lives. The detrimental effects of many
pathological
multi-billion-dollar corporations, that are exclusively focussed on
profits and
buying laws which suit their pathological needs to increase profits, is
pushing
our entire planet towards catastrophic failure - and we're trying to live on
it! (Off the west coast of Texas is a huge seething stinking morass of
plastic that circles in a vortex in the Pacific. The diameter of this
plastic island ranges from 50 to 100 miles, throughout the year.)

The whole point is to re-emphasise the fact that multi-billion-dollar
corporations are, through the process of maximising profits in order to
satisfy
shareholders, keeping exclusive control as much as they can.
Ironically,
these corporations develop the very technology which, if we used it for our
benefit instead of shareholders' benefit, would improve all our lives
and would
allow us, globally, to live within our global means. As it is, we are
asset-stripping the very place we are living in - Earth - and we don't
have a
replacement planet to live on (yet).

The bottom line is that the continuous pursuit of profits on a global
scale is
going to catch up with us. There are many reports telling us time
and time
again that our global and collective approach to our planet is
unsustainable,
and there are many more signs emphasising that the current global system is
close to collapse. So, we have a limited window of opportunity in
which to
transform world behaviour. We have a limited window of opportunity to
utilise the existing economic infrastructure to create and piece
together the
next generation of technology. Technology that is "useful" to people
throughout the world, which uses less resources, less power, relies less on
"infrastructure", and becomes more reliable and more "useful" as the
number of
people connected together increases.

The next section hints at how that can happen.

How is technology currently used in some more obscure
areas?

Sharing of "unused" resources for communication, via peer-to-peer
technology
such as Google Talk and Skype. Peer-to-peer communication
technology
is far more reliable, much easier to install and use, and less
problematic
for its users.

Sharing of "information" - some of it with purpose in mind and some
of it
purely entertainment - via peer-to-peer technology such as Gnutella,
KaZaA,
gnunetd and other information-sharing technology. Typically, that
information is "files", but projects like i2p and gnunetd provide an
entire
infrastructure to create an "Internet over the Internet".

Sharing of "unused" resources for scientific benefit, via distributed
clustering technology. For example, the SETI @ Home project;
the Human
Genome project. In all of these projects, people's personal
computers
are used to run software written by scientists, where the software
retrieves
data from the project over the Internet, processes it, and sends the
results
back to the scientists.

Assisting scientific projects by communicating over distributed
technology a
specific task where an individual can be trained very quickly to become
"useful", and, because of the vast resource that these "unskilled"
people
represent, the work can be duplicated and double-checked,
quintuple-checked.
For example, in the pinpointing of microscopic space dust in hundreds of
millions of high-resolution satellite images which is hazardous to
satellites and spacecraft.

Many of these uses are frowned upon. a lot. Mostly by those who
provide the single-point-of-failure services listed earlier. Some,
however, have made it - despite enormous efforts to stop them, whilst
others are
so clearly of scientific benefit to humanity, such as the distributed
analysis
for the Human Genome project, that they take hold.

How could the mainstream convergence of this obscure
technology
help people?

There are so many ways in which the convergence - fusion - of peer-to-peer
software on peer-to-peer-enabled hardware - is useful to people that it's
untrue, and so it's difficult to ascertain why it hasn't already
happened, and
why the problems have not yet been overcome.

A group of people go out hiking or riding, and they have an accident (or
encounter someone who has). There is an urgent need to return
to their
vehicles, yet they are in dense forest, are unable to get a
satellite lock
on their GPS, and cannot locate the vehicle in which the first aid
equipment
is located. They are also a long way from any cell towers.
However - they have 900mhz UHF digital radio with peer-to-peer internet
access in their hand-held phones, with, just as in the OLPC "ZeroConf"
software, contains signal-strengh reporting. Their vehicle is
fitted
with a 20 watt 900mhz UHF compatible radio, and they have stayed
within its
30 mile range, with the vehicle deliberately parked high up.
The same
technology that they have in their hands is also the same technology
in the
vehicle, and so the vehicle's base station also has a cell phone,
and is in
range. An emergency call is relayed via the vehicle to the
mountain
rescue services. Additionally, the distress beacon is picked
up by a
remote lodge (who happen to have 900mhz UHF) and, in combination
with the
automated help from the lodge basestation (by pinging the handset
and also
requesting its GPS location) and the known location of the vehicle, the
group are able to have their location pinpointed, and reported to
mountain
rescue.

An individual in distress and in need of assistance is able to find
help,
even though a community is asleep and unable to be raised through
emergency
beacon activation, by "walking towards" the radio signal's increasing
strength. Phased-Array ceramic antenna beam-steering also
gives some
guidance on the direction that the signal is coming from.

A semi-automatic ontology classifer (for example the one developed
in The
AMOS Project) helps to organise Wikipedia and provides automated
links to
articles and information online, thus helping cut down on plagiarism,
favouritism, the breakdown in trust on Wikipedia pages being
vandalised, and
many more things.

The same semi-automated ontology classifer automatically spots an
obscure
self-taught young mathematician has written in his own language a
solution
to a century-long-unsolved and very important mathematical problem
which is
outlined in detail on the Wolfram Mathworld site.

Web sites which are suddenly discovered and become popular are
automatically
replicated (if nothing else in static form). Ironically, this
was the
very goals of the 1996 Microsoft Research
"Millenium
Project".

For the same reason as above, Censorship becomes impossible.
Ironically, the insanity of many people becomes recognised - and
replicated
- as well as the sanity of some good ideas. Fortunately, due
to the
level of global communication, it's possible for saner voices to
mobilise
quickly, to overwhelmingly assist those suffering from mass-insanity
and a
desire to "rewrite history". The jobs usually assigned to
those of the
United Nations, and Governments, are possible to be performed by
ordinary
people instead of mostly-well-meaning, but inefficient under-achieving
bureaucratic and corrupted organisations.

In combination with GPS pinpointing, Carbon Dioxide sensors, Temperature
sensors and tiny spectrum analysis equipment embedded in the
hand-helds give
the world's most accurate picture that we have ever known - uncensored,
undeniable, distributed and analysable by anyone not just scientists
whose
work is being edited, toned down and suppressed - of the state of the
planet, and our effect on it.

Information on survival under difficult and emergency circumstances
can be
looked up or transmitted immediately to places affected by Natural
disasters, such as Tornados and Tsunamis. Methods to obtain clean
water from morning dew, using plastic sheets buried in the ground,
can be
described to people, including images or even videos, if
necessary. As
the underlying technology is peer-to-peer distribution, using for
example
bittorrent, the videos can be easily found and distributed.

Self-inflicted ecological disasters from "modern" over-farming, creating
mono-crop agricultural wastelands (such as the area surrounding
Colorado,
Boulder) can be reversed. The so-called "Third World" farming
techniques can be re-learned by the "First World" through communication
networks where, just as Muhammad Yunus envisages, text and voice is
automatically or semi-automatically translated, possibly even in
real time.

The list of possibilities is literally endless - and many more of them
are best
described in Muhammed Yunus' book
Creating
a World without Poverty , especially in Chapter 9. Even Ebay
has begun
to offer people a means to make microloans. Now imagine an
independent but
distributed banking infrastructure - an infrastructure where anyone or
any group
can put up their credentials, and collateral, and form an independent bank,
online...

It's perfectly possible.

Conclusion

Computer Technology - a tool - can be utilised to improve people's
lives.
We have two disparate models: the current model of centralisation,
and the future model of distributed infrastructure.

On the one hand, we have a situation where the underlying paradigm
is that of single person, single computer, single server, single
network route from computer to server. Easy to understand, easy
to
design, easy to implement, easy to control, easy to destroy.

And other the other hand, we have collaborative technology.
distributed information. distributed service. Communication and
search that goes via hundreds or thousands of different routes.
anonymity if you want it. Safety in numbers, yet it's still
possible
to "narrow in" to find the information you seek, communicate with
whom
you want to - without being overloaded.

Collaborative technology requires a shift in perception to understand
and design, yet, ironically it is not difficult for users to actually
use. In fact, quite often, collaborative technology overcomes many of
the technical barriers (such as the problems that NAT creates).

Additionally, on the hardware front, there is work required: a shift
is needed from the single-point-of-failure model to the distributed
model.

The hardware technology _does_ exist. Technology such as mesh
networking (which can us the OLPC zeroconf software, already in
existence) and mesh networking can be dramatically improved by the
use
of Ultra-Wide-Band 4.5km-range Transceivers.

So, even on the hardware front, the "old" model is to do
single-point-of-failure "star" networks, putting up cell towers that
are the sole and exclusive communications method. Even if the
person
you want to communicate with is only a few feet away.

There are a lot of unfounded leaps of logic made here, but I'll limit myself to a couple of the underlying problems.

First, the fundamental assumption that "technology" means "information technology" -- "Technology" is nothing more than a fancy word for "tool", but "information manipulation tools" are fairly low on the importance scale. (see "Hierarchy of Needs")

IT doesn't really matter if you can't get clean water or enough food to feed your and/or your family. Or clean-burning and/or efficient stoves to make the most of limited fuel supplies. Or access to basic health care.

Perhaps most of all, the incorrect assumption that most westerners erroneously make -- that there's a functional government out there running things with the public welfare as a prime concern -- things like respect for the rule of law.

The problem facing most of the world isn't (a lack of) technology. It's overpopulation (more people than the environment can handle) and greed, systemic or otherwise.

Meanwhile, to poke holes in some of your examples:

"A local fisherman" -- His "product" spoils very quickly, and if he holds out too long for a higher price, he'll end up with nothing. The middlemen know this and have been using this to their advantage for millenia. Meanwhile, so if the fishermen try to band together to get higher prices, what's to stop the middlemen from doing the same? IT works both ways.

The problem facing most of the world isn't (a lack of) technology. It's overpopulation (more people than the environment can handle) and greed, systemic or otherwise.

Meanwhile, to poke holes in some of your examples:

"A local fisherman" -- His "product" spoils very quickly, and if he holds out too long for a higher price, he'll end up with nothing. The middlemen know this and have been using this to their advantage for millenia. Meanwhile, so if the fishermen try to band together to get higher prices, what's to stop the middlemen from doing the same? IT works both ways.

"An Inventor" -- Where is he supposed to announce his new invention "on the internet?" His personal blog? What's going to draw attention to it (to attract investors?) He's going to have to pay for advertising/exposure, no matter what medium he uses, and since everyone else out there gets the same benefits of this new IT thing, he'll just be one voice among many clamoring for investment.

"A Homeless woman" -- You make this sound as if people voluntarily chose to be homeless; as if it's a "lifestyle choice". Frankly, if this hypothetical homeless woman had the skills to coordinate a full supply chain, manufacturing, order fufillment, sales, marketing, and other people skills (or at least had the money to pay for others to do this for her; online or otherwise), she wouldn't have been homeless (ie on the streets) to begin with.

So yeah, IT can improve people's lives, their lives already need to be at a point where IT, if of itself, can help. You can't eat a cell phone. A laptop won't keep you from being mugged/raped/killed by a gone-feral milita. (Well, you might be able to bribe them with it, I suppose...)

pizza, thank you for your comments - please do however consider posting solutions to the problems as well as just pointing out yet more problems. there are enough people saying "problem problem" - i'm not interested.

1) the homeless woman story is a true story. i cannot "make it sound" like anything. although, you are absolutely right: many people simply cannot be bothered to help themselves. examples include those people who sat around and died after the tsunami, and those people who sit around in camps in africa and at the french entrance to the channel tunnel, waiting for help. or food.

however, there are many many stories - some of them in muhammad yunus' book - where access to technology even such as a cellphone has made a dramatic difference. one such story professor yunus told was where the telephone numbers of increasingly higher levels up the chain of government were issued to each village - including the prime minister himself, with instructions to call if they encountered difficulties. one famous story is where a woman called the chief of police because someone had been raped and the local police had just "shrugged". she called the chief of police to say "what are you going to do about this? if you don't do something i will call the prime miniser i have his phone number RIGHT here!" and a team of police was round within an hour.

the list of benefits goes on and on

2) you're not getting the importance of independent communications, most likely because you're so used to centralised control. independent wireless mesh networking, of sufficient density (or range), is *free*.

ultra-wide-band using ceramic 8-way-phased-antennae is capable of a 3 *mile* range.

3 miles.

at one gigabit per second.

if you decrease the frequency down to 433 mhz (and the bandwidth down to 9600baud, the only legally allowed baud rate - i think - check wikipedia for details) then you're looking at about 10 miles - with very little power.

either way you're looking at _free_ and untaxed and uncensored communication.

3) access to healthcare etc. - yes, i forgot to put that in: it's possible, if you have internet access, to look up information and get a self-diagnosis. or, to be able to contact organisations willing to offer free healthcare diagnosis, suggestions, research on local materials, local herbs etc. contact with indigenous people who may be a couple of hundred miles away

the possibilities are endless why do i have to spell it out for everyone ? do you _like_ having problem, problem oh mee i'm so much better off than anyone else i can tell them how much better it is in the first world.

actually, the first world is going for self-destruct, and is in DESPERATE need of contact with the so-called "third world" for advice on how to undo the damage of monocrop farming which has turned much of the first world into deserts and, in the case of colorado, will turn it into deserts pretty soon unless the process is reversed. biodiversity needs to be reestablished FAST and the people with the expertise in doing that live tens of thousands of miles away in harmonious sustainable "poverty".

so - thank you for illustrating a need to point out more clearly certain matters.

anyone else who has these kinds of viewpoints please SPEAK UP because for every person who does there will be lots who will just walk away thinking that there's nothing that can be done.

also please, anyone else who can think of "positive examples" or "alternative solutions" please also speak up, it will save me the job of having to do it.

professor yunus also reports an incident in india where two people secretly recorded a $2000 bribe being handed over to a government official in return for a defense contract (or such). the incident was uploaded to the internet, and the response was utterly overwhelming. most of the government were forced to resign.

yunus points out that it is assumed that hundreds of millions of dollars exchanges hands in bribes in india, yet actually seeing a small sum such as only $2000 - actually _seeing_ $2000 exchange hands in front of people's eyes made them see red.

IT _really does_ make a difference.

now imagine if a protest was in progress, or a peace rally, and it went awry and the police decided to start shooting the crowd, or if there was a stand-off situation. imagine if there were people with real-time video uplinks to the internet reporting the incident, live, to the world.

what do you think would happen?

do you remember the miner's strike, in the UK? an associate of mine had a family member who was supposed to be in Ireland. he was called over to help margaret thatcher terminate the coal pits. "allo son, what you doing here guarding the gates with all your mates, i thought you were in ireland?" "shut up, dad, see you at christmas" he replied.

now - the thing about that situation was that the police charged on the miners on strike, and beat them up. the miners then retaliated.

when it was shown on television, the incidents - only a minute or two apart - were reversed.

if that had gone out live, uncensored, it could have caused history to be entirely different.

and that happened in the country which i'm supposed to be proud to live in.

This article recognizes the danger of Digital Restrictions Management
(see DefectiveByDesign.org), and the importance of free software
(software that respects the users freedom; see
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html). In conflict with that is
the praise for the non-free Skype software, which was judged solely
on convenience.

Skype is no different from Windows or MacOS in that the developer
has total control over it, and the users have none. Whether it
is convenient or not, you can't use it and have freedom.

rms, hi, thanks - i apologise for not emphasising enough that skype is proprietary. its example was given definitely to inspire the free software community to do better, rather than to advocate that it should be used. i'd forgotten however that there will be people reading this article that do not know the distinction between free and proprietary software.

i'll revise the article (and point out explicitly that that's been done, so that people reading later won't go "huh??" when they see your comment)

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